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User blog:Cdrzillafanon/Originality and Parodies
Not words you're used to seeing in the same sentence I'm sure. I've made this blog post, inspired by Stephen's old post on originality concerning fanfictions in general. The fact is, as much as some might see me as the Parody white knight or something, there are some crappy pages out there, and while I don't think they should all be grouped together into this perception of cringy pages and unfunny jokes people seem to have about them, some are pretty bad, and one thing I've noticed is that many of the ones that often get deleted or moved to the Parody wiki aren't too original. When writing comedy, just as when writing something serious, you have do something at least somewhat original. No one likes to see the same joke done over again for umpteenth time. Be original, come up with a new joke, put the effort you would into some of your serious work, and most importantly, make it something people can geniuenely laugh at. Now since I'm one of the people generally pointed at as someone who makes the good parodies, a title I'm honored to have, I thought I'd give some tips on making something humorous....and maybe a bit original. Stay Away from Cringe Humor For those not in the know, cringe humor refers to humor that is purposefully cringy or unfunny in order to derive some sort of ironic chuckle from your audience. It's been done to death. This is not the trollpasta wiki, if you're going to write humor you need to legitametely try to write humor, not make a bunch of crappy Dao jokes and whatnot in the hopes that you can make someone cringe so much they begin to laugh. Cringe humor pages are the reason parodies get such a bad rep in the first place, a reputation not entirely earned. Chances are, what would get you some laughs on 4chan won't here, so don't do it. Overpowered Characters and Underpowered Characters Now OP characters are practically synonomous with parodies and the Ultrafan wiki as a whole at this point. If you want to make an overpowered parody character, do something different. Don't set out to make the next Shining Shining Zero, or Ultraman OPius, do something different. Now I have at this point roughly 5 Parody Ultras who can be considered overpowered to my name, and have you noticed something about them? They're all distinct. It's the reason I can remember I have 5 of them. To give an exmaple, Shining Shining Zero and Ultraman Neo Xenon are on paper, incredibly similar to one another. However, I wanted to make sure they were different from one another and not a pair of bad Neo Mebius parodies. From their personalities to their abilities, I wrote them to be different from one another despite both being overpowered characters with some Neo Mebius jokes thrown in. Their personalities are the biggest example of this. Their fusion form of Ultraman Shining Neo Saga, while originally made to be the pinnacle of OPness for the obvious lols, is also, I hope so at least, a distinct entity from his components. Similarly, don't try to make the next Ultraman Nerf. While there is room for more OP characters, with super weak characters like this, there doesn't really need to be more than one. This is why Zenon's "Neo Noa" parody who followed a similar route was deleted so quickly from the parody wiki. It's not a new idea, and I appreciate how some users can recognize this. Can you believe that Ultraman Blizarrd was once an underpowered parody character? Don't be afraid to change aspects of your ideas. I've done so myself, such as when I changed the names of Shining Shining Zero's attacks to make them less cringy. Lastly, there does not need to be any more SUPER HYPER ULTRA OMEGA ULTIMATE Kaiju. SUPER HYPER ULTRA OMEGA ULTIMATE GODZILLA is the closest I've gotten to making something cringey on purpose, but even then I tried not to make it something so bad it looked like Dao would write it. This brings me to my next point. Don't make trends out of things that don't need to be trends Now at this point I'm sure we're all familiar with Neo Ultras, and how they quickly grew from Neo Mebius and Neo Xenon, to an epidemic of sorts that we're all sick of by now. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it stopped being funny after Neo Neos. Neo Ultras are a dead trend and it should stay that way. This goes for any other thing that could become a trend. While I think it's one of Zenon's better parodies, I am in a way glad Shining Shining Shining Zero was deleted. Such an unoriginal idea was bound to be replicated until it got just as annoying as Neo Ultras. I already said my peace about SUPER HYPER ULTRA OMEGA ULTIMATE Kaiju, and that brings me to anything else that could become a trend. Alter Ultras are the first that come to mind. Not only is it CBeard's concept, but a bunch of carbon copies of official Ultras with "Alter" shoved on the end of their name will grow tiring quickly. No offense to Gren, but Ultraman 0 is the only Zero Alter ripoff this wiki needs. And I swear if someone makes something like "Neo Neo Ultras" or "Neo Alter Ultras" I will...... Parodies based on wierd bootleg costumes This is a semi-trend in the parody community, and while I've made a few of them, I would like to commend Gren for being able to come up with geniuenly different backstories and personalities for the myriad of Ultras he's created based on wierd bootleg cotumes and other random things. If you wish to make one of your own of these Ultras, do try to be original with it. Just typing a long version of "lol look how stupid this weird costume I found on the internent is" won't get you any laughs, and could very well get the admins trying to remove all parodies again because of a few cringy pages like that one. Come up with a legit backstory and maybe a funny name. Notice how no one has literally used the name "Ultraman Bootleg" yet. That's because it would be utterly stupid and any jokes you may make on such a page would be seen a mile away. OrbGeeds A trend mostly in parodies, but also in some serious works, OrbGeeds as I've begun calling them, have been done to death. There's nothing original about making yet another Ultra who fuses past Ultras using some kind of device or object. Things like Card and G'd are clever. And serious Ultras using the concept have managed to be pretty original themselves, but every once and a while something like Ultraman Ored and the deleted Ultraman Zido crops up. If you want to do something to make fun of Orb or more recently Geed, do something original with it. Some users seem to think they can make the next Ultraman Card, and well, you can't. I'll readily admit my own Ultraman Spoiler is not very original, but I did try to make him at least somewat unique. If you want to make an OrbGeed, I reccomend you do the same. Dao Jokes Dao jokes have been done to death. Yet another Dao parody would have to be executed very well for it not to just annnoy everyone who looks at it. If you feel inclined to make fun of Dao in any way, do something different with it. Find a new joke. Additionally, do not write a Dao-style page as a joke. KarateGod comes to mind. A forced sex change and implied rape is not funny. Parodies of Annoying Users First, always make sure the user you're making fun if is unanimously disliked, such as Masura or Emerald. Making fun of an annoying user can easily be seen as targeting someone and land you into trouble. If you make a character based on another user in ANY way, make sure to be respectful if it isn't someone everyone hates like Masura. Variants of canon Ultras The fact is, a parody version of an official Ultra is something we've all seen before many times. I recommend staying away from these else have your page lumped in with Neo Ultras and such. Ironic Parodies/"Made to be deleted" pages The fact is, no one likes these. Making a bad page and slapping the parody category on it then claiming it was made to be deleted, whether you intended that or not, is a waste of everyone's time. Don't use humor as an excuse to make a bad page Just because your page is a parody doesn't mean it can be a crappy page lacking in content. It makes it an annoyance and proves true those who associate parodies with sub-par effortless pages. Just put effort into it. Don't throw something out because you just thought of something kind of funny and then typed a few sentences to go along with it. Parodies, like serious work, need effort. Please don't make effortless pages like my own Ultraman TBA, a page created as an example of such pages. End of thing So that's it. My whole spiel on parodies and how to hopefully make them actually good. As someone who enjoys making and reading parodies (the ones of actual quality), I don't want to see the ability to do so taken away because someone decided to replicate an unoriginal idea or make some stupid effortless page. I hope this can help to improve future parodies, and I do hope people read this and are inspired to improve their own comedic work. Shout out to my fellow masters of Parodies: Cbeard, Gren, and of course Hoshi for inspiring this by showing that parodies don't have to be the stupid cringeworthy pages everyone seems to think they are. I hope I've made this worthwhile. Category:Blog posts